When I began reading John Green's, "The Fault in Our Stars," I struggled to read a few pages before I had to put the book down. The next day, I read through the first few chapters, and again I had to take a break from reading the emotional material. Although fictional, the words resonated with me in ways other cancer narratives never had, and my visceral reaction to his book was overwhelming. Past experience has taught me the journey of a cancer patient is uniquely personal; the same can be stated for a cancer caregiver. Regardless of the role, unless you have experienced cancer from either perspective, the poignancy of this novel might not resonate as significantly to a cancer observer. I strongly believe the motivation behind Green's novel was not monetarily driven; rather, he penned a thoughtful and carefully constructed novel that humanized cancer patients, and expertly voyaged through the Republic of Cancervania. Writing about disease is a difficult task, and for John Green, the topic of this novel haunted him for 12 agonizing years before he was able to construct a narrative that felt authentic. He was relentlessly cognizant of the fact that he was not suffering from a terminal illness, and he did not want to stifle the voices of those who had their own stories to tell (Rosen par. 4-6). Green described the initial inspiration for his book developed from memories that echoed deep within him: Well, many years ago I worked as a student chaplain at a children's hospital, and I think it got lodged in my head then. The kids I met were funny and bright and angry and dark and just as human as anybody else. And I really wanted to try to capture that, I guess, and I felt that the stories that I was reading sort of oversimplified and sometimes even dehumanized them. And I think generally we have a habit of imagining the very sick or the dying as being kind of fundamentally other. I guess I wanted to argue for their humanity, their complete humanity. (Rosen par. 4) I have always believed that writers are motivated by an intrinsic need to tell a story. And until that story is told, it becomes a distraction that permeates every dark corner of the mind. Anne Lamott is a novelist and writing teacher